Blood Stains
by x Hemlock x
Summary: Sirius goes missing during a Ministry party. James puts his new Auror skills to the test to find his friend, but it stops being an exercise at the first sign of scorch marks.


_**A/N:**_ AU in which Sirius and James become Aurors after Hogwarts, which leads Sirius to attend a party he wouldn't have been invited to otherwise.

* * *

**Blood Stains**

Blood dripped from his fingers, thick and sticky against his skin. More covered his robes, almost hidden in the black fabric. Almost, but not entirely.

It wasn't his blood. Things would have been easier had it been. But it wasn't. Not his blood. But it was his fault.

* * *

Music filled the night.

A string quartet sat on the large balcony overlooking the grounds. The musicians worked through their sets as the crowd gathered on the mansion patio danced and mingled. Garlands of lights hung from the trees and hedges, and glowing orbs floated above the partygoers' heads. The heady smell of the MacMillans' rose garden made heads spin as though lulled by a siren's call.

James grabbed another glass of champagne from a passing house-elf and grinned at the pleasant buzz working its way through his system. A tap on his shoulder stopped him from raising the flute to his lips.

"Take it easy there, Potter," said Gawain Robards. "Can't have you throwing up all over our hosts' prized rose bushes."

James straightened in the presence of his ranking officer, pushing his shoulders back and doing his best not to sway on the spot. "No, sir."

"Remember that when you wear these robes"—he tugged at the lapels of his Auror uniform—"you represent the Ministry. Any actions you take that reflect badly on the Ministry will not be appreciated."

"Understood, sir."

"Good lad." Robards scanned the nearby crowd, a frown creasing his brow. "Where's Black?"

"He went looking for the loo, sir. The, uh, champagne wasn't agreeing with him."

Robards heaved a sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. "That boy, I swear. Go look for him, would you, Potter? Make sure he hasn't ended up anywhere inappropriate."

James bit back a smile and nodded. "Yes, sir."

As Robards disappeared into the crowd, James set down his champagne flute and checked his watch. Sirius had been gone for nearly half an hour, which meant he was either more of a lightweight than James had thought or he'd found someone's company to enjoy. Either way, it would be best if James found him before Robards did. He set off in the direction Sirius had earlier, up the broad stone steps and into the large house.

* * *

Sirius rubbed his hands against his robes, but the red stains remained.

His teeth chattered, and goosebumps pulled at his skin beneath his blood-drenched sleeves. The chill that clung to his spine didn't care about the summer heat. It froze him to the spot, spreading ice through his veins until his limbs felt as heavy as lead. All the while, his gaze stayed fixed on the body at his feet.

It had been an accident. But what did that matter now?

He had done this.

Killed a man. Taken a life.

What did that make him?

A killer. A murderer. A monster.

Tears burned his eyes and blurred his sight, but nothing could hide the blood, such a bright crimson red, or the body, with its dark robes and pale skin.

What little colour those sallow cheeks had once held slowly drained as the pool of blood staining the hardwood floor grew and grew. Dark eyes stared at Sirius, unseeing yet accusing as the life bled from Severus Snape.

* * *

James popped his head into the twelfth bathroom he'd found so far—or was it the thirteenth? He'd lost track, too busy muttering to himself about this lousy game of hide-and-seek he'd found himself playing with his no-good best friend. Why did a house need upwards of twelve bathrooms anyway? And why had Sirius not locked himself in one of the ones James had already found? Where the hell had he run off to?

The floor swayed beneath James's feet as that last glass of champagne walloped him. He squeezed his eyes shut to stop the room from spinning and steadied himself against the wall. He counted to ten, then added another twenty for good measure.

A few deep breaths later, his spinning head settled, and he pushed away from the wall. He glanced up and down the hall, hoping to see Sirius stumbling towards him, but had no such luck.

He forced the gears in his head to get back to work. His Auror training had been rushed because of the war, but he had paid attention in every class, including the boring ones like Stealth and Tracking.

Sirius wasn't a criminal on the run, but close enough.

Step one: get to know your opponent. Check. Step two: gather clues. Unless Sirius had left behind a trail of breadcrumbs, James already knew everything he could hope to find out. Which left step three: get inside your opponent's head. James grinned. He knew Sirius better than he knew himself, and whether Sirius cared to admit it or not: the guy was predictable.

James set off down the hallway, eyes peeled for his wayward friend.

* * *

Bloody Snivellus.

A laugh tore through Sirius's throat, broken and high-pitched; a screech of nails against a chalkboard echoing down the empty corridor. Bloody Snivellus, indeed.

The laughter stopped as abruptly as it had begun, and Sirius's stomach heaved, bile burning its way past his lips, spraying the wall and floor.

He wiped his mouth with his sleeve, remembering too late the blood soaking the fabric. It smeared over his face, so cold and clammy that it sent him to his knees, his stomach roiling, trying to rid itself of this impurity. But it couldn't, not when the impurity was Sirius himself.

He stared into the dark, glassy eyes of a man he had despised. "I'm sorry," he whispered.

The words fell on deaf, unforgiving ears.

It had only taken one spell, one stupid spell, which Sirius had never cast before. He should have known better. You don't cast unknown spells in the field.

He couldn't say now what he'd been thinking then, when he'd jabbed his wand and uttered an incantation he'd once heard Snape use on James. Curiosity maybe? When Snape had tried the spell against James during their fifth year, it had cut a gash across the side of James's face, enough to leave a scar, but nothing more. It wasn't meant to do this. Not anything close to this. Snape must have botched it. But Sirius hadn't.

Lacerations cut across Snape's face, neck, and hands, everywhere Sirius could see. Blood from hidden gashes darkened his black robes.

Sirius remembered the look on Snape's face as the spell had hit its mark. The wide-eyed shock. The rising horror. The helpless, broken gasp of a man whose fate had been decided without him. Sirius had laughed. He hadn't realised what he had done.

He knew now.

His laughter had died with Snape.

* * *

"Sirius," James hissed into yet another empty bathroom. He resisted the urge to add a few choice swear words along with his best friend's name, but only just.

The party would be ending soon, and two of the guests of honour were missing. Robards was going to kill them. After months of training, James didn't fancy spending his first year as an Auror stuck behind a desk, doing paperwork. Not to mention the reaction James's parents would have when they heard the news of their son's mid-party disappearance.

The MacMillans had been kind enough to host this party for the recent Auror graduates after Euphemia and Fleamont Potter had bowed out from the undertaking. Dragon pox or no, James's mum and dad would haul him over the coals if he offended his hosts. They insisted that they'd raised him better than this.

James stepped back into a hallway that seemed to run the entire length of the mansion through various twists and turns. He'd checked every room on the ground floor before moving up a level. The thick carpet muffled his footsteps, and the gas lamps cast flickering shadows on the wood-panelled walls and the sleeping portraits of the MacMillan line.

In the quiet and the low light, James's thoughts wandered to his parents, but he couldn't let them dwell there.

He would write to them when he got home, but first, he had to find Sirius—Sirius, who was supposed to be predictable in his unpredictability, yet still eluded James's search. It wasn't James's fault. It was this damn house.

It was as though the architect had drawn rooms onto a sheet of parchment with no thought as to how they connected before realising their mistake and adding one long corridor to the plans. The hallway snaked from room to room, widening and narrowing at random like a rabbit's warren. Rooms went off in all directions, some small enough to fit little more than a broom, others large enough to house an entire Quidditch team, all linked together by this winding path.

James didn't like it.

Open rooms and bright colours were more to his taste, nothing like this rambling Victorian straight out of those Gothic horror novels that Lily liked to read.

He twisted his wedding band and imagined her by his side, her blazing grin lighting the dark corridor. She had to work the nightshift at St Mungo's, though, so James had to hunt for Sirius on his own.

An inkling of unease crept along the back of James's neck. He glanced over his shoulder, down the empty hallway. The hissing of the lamps sounded like harsh whispers, and the heavy breathing from the paintings did nothing to belie that impression. Shadows moved as the lights danced, and a heaviness settled over James's shoulders.

With a shake of his head, he marched onwards, but he couldn't help another glance over his shoulder.

* * *

It had been an accident.

Did that make it better or worse?

His parents would have said the latter. They had never approved of accidents, of lack of control and emotional outbursts. It was better to show intent in all things, even the vilest. They wouldn't take kindly to the state Sirius found himself in now. The tears alone would have earned him a scolding, but their opinion had ceased to matter to him a long time ago. Now, all that mattered were his friends. Remus, Peter, Lily, James…James who was downstairs, waiting for Sirius to return.

Sirius swore and ran his hands through his hair, streaking the dark strands with red. What would James say to all this?

Sirius's heart hammered against his chest as though desperate to escape the prison of his ribcage.

James wouldn't understand.

It wouldn't matter to him that Snape hadn't been on the guest list, that he had been sneaking around, spying for You-know-Who. It wouldn't matter that Snape had cast the first spell or that only a quick dodge had saved Sirius from it. It wouldn't matter because, beneath it all, James was good, far better than Sirius could ever hope to be. All he would see was his best friend, who had killed rather than subdued. He would finally see what everyone else had always expected, always feared: the heir to the Noble and Most Ancient House of Black, evil to the core just like the rest of them.

James would never look at him the same again.

Sirius wouldn't be sent to Azkaban for this, not with Bartemius Crouch at the Head of the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. A man like that was more likely to give him a medal for dispatching a suspected Death Eater. Robards might put him on probation or dump all the paperwork until the next millennia on him for not following protocol, but nothing earth-shattering. Yet Sirius couldn't let any of that happen.

James couldn't find out what he had done, which meant that no one could know. Which meant that Sirius had some tidying up to do.

* * *

An elderly woman carrying a Crup under her arm scowled at James as she walked past him, no doubt because of the swears he kept muttering. The two-tailed dog growled at him, and he was half-tempted to do what Sirius would have done and growl back. He didn't, though, because Sirius featured at the top of his blacklist.

There was a perfectly good party going on downstairs, yet here James was, now on the fourth floor, looking for his good-for-nothing best friend, who, more likely than not, had either gone home or found someone to entertain him, probably in a dark closet or locked bedroom.

Two seconds away from letting Sirius deal with the fallout with Robards on his own, James's left shoe squeaked and skidded against the floor. He caught himself on the wall, thumping against it hard enough for a twinge to run up his wrist.

With a groan and a curse, he shook his hand and rolled his shoulder.

The floor beneath his feet shone brighter than the rest of the hallway. He crouched and ran a finger over it. The smooth surface felt as though it had been sanded and polished, whereas the darker patch next to it scraped his skin, gritty and rough.

A frown creased his brow, and he stood. His narrowed eyes fell upon a dark patch on the wall. He touched it, and his fingers came back covered in soot. Scorch marks.

With a steady breath, James drew his wand, his posture rigid and the muscles in his arms tense. There was another explanation for Sirius's overlong absence; one James hadn't thought to consider, one he dared not contemplate too carefully now because the mere thought made his stomach squirm.

He had to find Sirius. Now.

* * *

Sirius gazed out the open window as what remained of Severus Snape disappeared into the night.

He had never been any good at domestic work. He hadn't paid attention when Professor Flitwick had taught household charms, assuming he'd have a house-elf to do all those chores for him. He hadn't anticipated his parents forsaking him. For the first time, he regretted his disownment, but only because he couldn't call upon Kreacher to clean up after him.

Getting rid of the blood had been the worst part. He'd cast a Levitation Charm on the corpse—that was all it was, a corpse, a thing, not something that had once been a person. One weak Cleaning Charm after the next had followed until he'd been able to light the tip of his wand and see not a fleck of red remaining on the floor or walls.

He'd had to figure out what to do with the body—that thing that at no point had ever been a person—but magic made corpse disposal laughably easy. All it had taken was a Shield Charm to avoid any property damage and a Fire Curse cast over and over until all that had remained of Severus Snape was ash. Sirius had levitated the ashes down the hall, to the right, and then to the left, until he'd found a window.

Now Severus Snape floated on the wind, falling like snow over the MacMillans's rose bushes.

As the evidence of his crime vanished, a weight lifted from Sirius's shoulders.

"Sirius?"

Sirius turned with a grin as James ran up to him.

Worry creased James's brow and his white-knuckled grip grasped his wand. "Are you all right?"

Doubt crept through Sirius, but he shook it off. James didn't know the truth; he couldn't do. Sirius had disposed of the evidence. Everything was fine.

"Of course. Why do you ask?"

James's hold on his wand tightened, his eyes darting to Sirius's hands. "Why do you have your wand out?"

Sirius shrugged and pocketed it. "No reason. You?"

Panic zinged through Sirius's brain. Perhaps he'd forgotten something. Maybe he hadn't cleaned up as well as he'd thought he had.

But James's shoulders relaxed, and he put his wand away with a sheepish shake of his head. "I thought you were in trouble."

Laughter wooshed from Sirius's lungs. "Me? Never."

"In that case, you have no excuse, and you're a prat." A smile touched James's lips. "Do you know how long I've been looking for you?"

"I hadn't realised how much you crave my company, Jamie. Lily will be disappointed."

James shoved him. "You're a prat."

"That I am."

With a shake of his head and a roll of his eyes, James gestured down the hallway. "Come on, Robards was looking for you."

A grin split Sirius's face, and he flipped his blood-free hair from his forehead. "The man has good taste."

"He wants to make sure you're staying out of trouble, not ask you out."

Sirius waved away the distinction and sauntered down the corridor, content and carefree, knowing that what was done in the dark would remain there.

* * *

The moment Sirius turned his back, James's frown crept back into place. He glanced from Sirius to that open window, his mind sorting through puzzle pieces that he couldn't quite understand.

He shook his head, clearing his muddled brain, and followed his best friend.

* * *

_It is wise to remember that what is done in the dark will remain there only so long as no one sheds light upon it._


End file.
